


Havoc on the Throne

by sophinisba



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Background Relationships, Canon Compliant, Episode Related, F/M, Female Friendship, Master/Servant, Masturbation, POV Female Character, Princes & Princesses, Season/Series 04, Season/Series 05, Sexual Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-14
Updated: 2012-12-14
Packaged: 2017-11-21 03:04:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/592724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophinisba/pseuds/sophinisba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why shouldn't Mithian have this?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Havoc on the Throne

**Author's Note:**

> This is a gift for the merlin-holidays community - especially my fellow Mithian fans! I really enjoyed thinking about her inner life and what changed for her between her two appearances on the show. Many thanks to my beta for all their help, including helping me choose the title, which comes from the Rufus Wainwright song "The Consort".

Mithian had never known any servant to be as rude as Merlin, much less the servant of a king. He traded insults with Arthur as easily as Mithian and her maid traded smiles. For most of her first day in Camelot Mithian waited for Arthur to lose his patience, to have Merlin sacked, have him lashed for his lack of respect. Instead, Arthur would glower, answer with a silly jab of his own, or make threats that he clearly had no intention of carrying out. And, occasionally, Arthur would duck his head and attempt to hide a smile.

Well, if she was to marry a man who cared for his servant as much as for anyone living, she'd best get used to it. And best get on said servant's good side. 

Just once she managed to catch him alone, and though he might have felt embarrassed, he did not grovel, did not even lower his gaze or the weapon he held awkwardly at his shoulder. He spoke to her very nearly as if to an equal, and it gave Mithian a little thrill to answer back the same way; instead of ordering the boy to stay out of her and Arthur's affairs, she politely requested his friendship. As she watched him walk away she wondered if this strange, unbalanced feeling was what kept Arthur turning back to Merlin as well.

All in all, Mithian considered, this arrangement might not be so bad. Arthur himself was surprisingly tolerable – not the sun-kissed god Vivian had gushed about for four months after her visit to Camelot, but also not the crooked-toothed boor she's complained about ever since the enchantment was lifted. In reality he was handsome and friendly, a fine horseman and hunter…and, yes, rather conceited and bossy, but among their set Mithian had known much worse. 

She was not in love, but then, she had never expected to be. It would be no great sacrifice, she told herself, to take this man to bed a few times each month until she'd borne him a pair of sons. Arthur would be kind, their children would be beautiful and their lands would prosper. Most likely, Merlin would be there too, clowning around with the children in good times and lifting the king's spirits when he needed it, giving him solid, honest advice.

And mightn't he do for Mithian as well? She'd have her own servants to see to her clothes and her baths and her meals away from Arthur. But a queen needs good counsel too. A queen needs good company and free exchange, someone who doesn't cower every time a royal speaks a word to them. Couldn't Merlin also make Mithian smile? If she asked nicely, couldn't he wash her feet and rub her shoulders at the end of a long day? After complaining about how hard his work is and how easy the king and queen have it, after sulking or rolling his eyes or smiling with that cheeky smile, wouldn't he still be a good enough servant to kneel at her feet and do as she bid?

Mithian liked to think that he would. They'd make a very happy family, Mithian and Arthur and Merlin and whoever might come along to join them. Perhaps Arthur would take another lover; as long as Mithian's place and her children's were secure, she would not try to stop him. Perhaps Mithian could have a lover too.

* * *

Mithian had known Vivian since they were five and was her best friend in the world, despite fairly often wanting to strangle her. She'd been the only friend to stay with Vivian through those bad months after she met Arthur. In fact, it was Mithian who'd found the sorceress to lift the spell and bring her back to herself.

As such, she'd long since become accustomed to Vivian's extraordinary capacity for taking offense, so that now, when Vivian said, "He's done it just to spite me, I'm sure of it," Mithian hummed in sympathy before even bothering to check the identity of the scoundrel in question. 

Unsurprisingly, it was Arthur. With a sigh Mithian set down her letter she'd been writing. It was probably a good idea to pay attention to this conversation.

"First he breaks his promises to me," said Vivian, holding up one delicate finger as if to begin a list. Mithian took hold of her hand to stop her.

"It was the spell that broke, Vivian. You know he'd never have made those promises if not for –"

"Well, that's one more count against him, isn't it?"

"You wouldn't have minded if you'd not been enchanted yourself."

"Of course I would! I'm not saying _I_ wanted to marry _him_ , but he should have wanted to be with me, magic or no! It's not as if there are any more _worthy_ women in the five kingdoms. Except for you, of course, dear!"

Mithian smiled tightly.

"And to think that he refused you as well! And in front of his entire court and your delegation, Mithian, I can't even imagine, how _humiliating_."

"Thank you for your concern."

"He made commoners into knights, _directly_ against his father's wishes, while his father was still king. Before he even met you he was already telling Camelot and the world that loyalty and nobility and the law meant nothing. It's a good thing you _didn't_ marry him, Mithian. That would have been even worse than what did happen."

"But Camelot would not have survived without the help of those knights."

"And then, _and then_ , with his father only a few months gone, and with your beautiful, noble face still fresh in Camelot's memory, as if he hadn't insulted us enough already, he goes and marries a servant girl. Think of it, someone who's worth nothing, who brings nothing to his kingdom, who brings him and his line into the dirt where she came from. A girl who knows nothing about being a queen, and obviously knows nothing about being a servant either, or she'd have known her place and known not to try to seduce and ruin a prince in the first place." 

Vivian was running out of breath and squeezing Mithian's hand painfully in her agitation. Vivian broke her hold and smoothed her hand down Vivian's arm.

"You know," she said gently, "considering that Arthur did refuse us both in favour of another woman, I want to believe this Guinevere must be good and worthy, never mind her station."

Mithian shook her head. "I met her, you know. She was completely awful. But _maybe_ —" Her eyes widened. "Maybe he hasn't done it out of spite after all. Perhaps it's another enchantment! You should investigate, Mithian. You're so clever, I bet you'd figure out how to save him just like you saved me."

"Arthur was rude to both of us, I won't argue with that, but I don't think he's in trouble. Or rather...I think Arthur always manages to get out of the trouble he's in without help from you and me. Perhaps this Guinevere has something to do with that, and that's why he trusts her so well. And then there's that other servant of his."

Vivian made a gagging sound, and Mithian had to laugh.

"That skinny country boy who's always skulking about under Arthur's feet? Ugh, he was even worse than the girl."

"Well, I couldn't speak to that, since I didn't meet her myself," Mithian said, pleased with how easily the evasion came to her, "but if you ask me, Arthur knows what he's doing. I've thought about this a lot, actually…"

"What, about Arthur's ugly servants?"

"No!" All right, her voice wasn't quite as smooth that time. "About… Look, you and I were brought up to believe we'd marry princes, right? Nobles at the very least."

"Only a prince or a king, of course!"

"And Arthur was brought up to believe he'd marry a princess like you or me. We were all ready to go along with that plan, even if we didn't especially like each other."

"Arthur decided he was above the rules," Vivian said with a little sniff.

"Arthur decided he could change the rules. And why not, if he's the king? And why shouldn't we, for that matter?"

Vivian opened her mouth and frowned, uncharacteristically speechless.

"It might be terribly unpleasant to be married to a king or a queen," Mithian explained, "someone so powerful, so accustomed to ordering people around. I'm sure I wouldn't want to marry you, and you know I love you dearly." Vivian tilted her head and smiled sweetly for the first time since they'd started talking about Arthur. "And you wouldn't want to marry me either. I'm too good at telling you you're wrong. But if you married a servant, why, you'd always get to have your way, wouldn't you?"

"I always get my way regardless," said Vivian, honestly confused.

"You do, at that," Mithian agreed, and kissed her friend's pretty, crinkled brow. "Now I really must finish this letter to my father before I go to sleep. You know they worry when we're away."

In reality Mithian's father was nowhere near as protective as Olaf, and had not truly minded when, for example, Mithian spent her entire month-long visit with Elena hunting and riding and fighting and never wrote home once. But mentioning their fathers was always a good way of getting through to Vivian, and all Mithian really needed right now was an excuse to be alone.

Because, to be honest, Mithian _had_ thought quite a lot about Arthur's servants, and not just in terms of what they meant for Arthur and Camelot, or how well some hypothetical commoner might serve her if she were to make him her consort.

When Mithian was alone at night, when she bit on the fingers of one hand to keep herself quiet, while her other hand pushed a wooden toy deep into her vagina or hard against her nub, she thought about Merlin. At first she was ashamed that his face came into her mind so often, and she would try to push it away, to think of someone more suitable. But once she heard the news of Arthur's marriage…well, of course she was angry at first. But it did explain the way he had treated her, and it also made her think that, really, anything was possible. Any _one_ was a suitable partner, or at least a suitable object of fantasy, be they a king who had scorned her, or a beautiful and oblivious princess, or a pale and bafflingly attractive peasant with big ears and very bad manners. 

She thought of the time she'd spoken to him alone, of the stubborn set of his shoulders, the way he's stood half turned away from her. She imagined laying a hand on one of those shoulders and pushing him down. How he'd go, not because she was stronger, but because she asked firmly, politely, _almost_ as if to an equal, but with the note of steel that could only be learned from a lifetime of never being told no.

If Merlin were hers (as Guinevere was Arthur's now – bound to him, sworn to him), she hoped he would still stand tall as he had then. She wanted the kind of man who needed to be pushed.

* * *

Mithian had learned something about masters and servants since Morgana's arrival at her father's castle five days earlier. She'd seen how someone could appear to strangers to be the perfect servant, full of deference and devotion, and all the while be torturing the one they pretended to serve. But Merlin was not like that, she reassured herself, Merlin hid nothing. Merlin was honest, as Mithian would like to be honest, were her father's life and her own not at stake.

He was not the boy whose image had kept her company on lonely nights in Nemeth and at Olaf's castle. Had her mind tricked her into exaggerating his slightness, his awkwardness, when she pictured him on his knees, head and back bent to bury his face in her sex? Perhaps. Or perhaps her memory was good, but the years had changed them both. Sex was the last thing on her mind now, but she looked to Merlin, watched him, hoped to make him _see_ , whenever she had the chance.

His face was fuller than she remembered, his shoulders broad with muscle, his bearing more confident than ever. And the weariness in his face was not a joke, not the long-suffering good humour she'd seen there before. It was suffering, plain and simple, long and deep, only pushed out of the way for now because more urgent matters demanded his attention.

 _She_ demanded his attention. She was the one leading them on this doomed quest, but no one watched her the way Merlin did, not even Morgana. If she could get the truth to anyone, it would be him. If anyone could help her, she was sure somehow, it would be him.

When Merlin was injured they nearly had to drag Mithian away. She would not have moved if not for the tight grip of her servant's hand on her wrist.

*

Back in Camelot's castle after the great confrontation with Odin and Morgana, Mithian was given a room adjoining her father's. There ought to be a maidservant to take Hilda's place by her side as she prepared for bed, but instead there was Merlin, lingering in the doorway.

"Is there anything else you need?" he asked, his voice so much deeper than in her memory that he sounded hoarse. Perhaps he was.

"Would you sit with me for a while?" she asked, and her own voice was breathy and weak, as it had been since this whole ordeal began. She wondered when she'd begin to sound like herself again, if she'd ever be able to feel like herself again.

"Yes," said Merlin, and without hesitation he walked her to the bed, then sat beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He didn't push. Neither did she.

"I've thought of you," Mithian said, "often. I've missed you. More than I missed Arthur. Or Vivian, or." She trailed off, wondering why she was telling him this. It wasn't as if she expected him to say he'd missed her just as much. He didn't. 

"And I thought, I used to think I'd like to come here and bring you back with me to Nemeth, but that's impossible, isn't it? You won't leave him."

"No," Merlin said simply.

Mithian nodded. "I don't know that I really wanted that anyway. It all seems rather silly now. I want my father to be safe. I want Nemeth to be free. I would wish that you and Arthur and Guinevere not think me a liar and a coward, but I suppose there's no helping that now. I don't want to marry a prince. I don't want to marry a servant. But I understand now, that wasn't what Arthur wanted either, was it? He fell in love with a person, and I fell in love with...I couldn't even say, Merlin." She paused, staring at the bedside table, the bracelet she'd taken off and would not wear again, but did not want to throw away.

"It's all right not to know everything in your own mind," Merlin said after a time. "Only natural that you'd be confused, after everything that --"

"I want you to hold me."

He smiled. "Well, at least the last part's easy."

She wasn't sure whether she pulled or he pushed, but then they were lying together, with his long frame wrapped close around hers, his hands at her back, his head tipped forward to murmur against her forehead, "You're safe now. I won't let anything happen to you."

Here was another side of Merlin, she thought fuzzily, different from the insolent servant, different again from the worried warrior she'd seen on the journey. She wondered how many scared young girls he'd promised the same thing, even though he couldn't possibly guarantee to keep anyone safe, not in these dangerous times. Was the man who held her now any more or less real, more or less _honest_ , than the cocky young scrap who used to join her in bed whenever she closed her eyes and touched herself?

She listened to his heartbeat and breathed his scent, and decided that for now it didn't matter.


End file.
